


The Taste of Water

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-24
Updated: 2008-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:17:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda for 4x01. This was what you were hoping for, wasn't it? When you told him to keep on fighting?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Taste of Water

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Many thanks to [](http://janissa11.livejournal.com/profile)[**janissa11**](http://janissa11.livejournal.com/) for the careful polish and [](http://smilla02.livejournal.com/profile)[**smilla02**](http://smilla02.livejournal.com/) for audiencing.

You lean against the frame of the bathroom door in a motel somewhere a day's drive from Pontiac, and watch your brother sleep.

~*~

This was what you were hoping for, wasn't it? When you told him to keep on fighting?

Or what about the whole friggin' year before that, when you kept asking him to spar with you, or said _a little target practice never hurt anyone_? Pretended like it was only fun, like it was one of your wishes, when you both knew it was more than that? Either way, it was what you wanted, never mind the dread mixed with relief when he said he wanted to be more like you.

You did that so he'd survive, so he wouldn't go down, wouldn't fall without you. So he'd live.

When you woke up, the dirt tasted alien on your tongue, rasped your skin as if you hadn't dug up a hundred graves in your life, two hundred, as if you'd never spent a crapload of time crawling in dark, dirty spaces where the light couldn't reach.

When you stood up, the warmth of the sun on your shoulders was the same heat you remembered; but it felt different, too, and you couldn't say why.

The familiar felt like a second skin, or the false bottom that hid your weapons in the Impala's trunk. Something waited underneath.

 _Tearing hot sharp infinite._

Water was just water, plain and clear and cold down your throat. In your whole life, you couldn't remember thinking about how water tasted, but you did then, you did as you gulped it down. Thinking how it shouldn't taste any different from the last time you'd had it.

It did, though.

Sam looked the same, too. His scent hadn't changed when he hugged you, whiff of gun oil and deodorant and sweat. There were corn chips on his breath. He wasn't any different, you told yourself, he was still Sam, just as you left him.

You pretended you weren't jonesing to ask about your car (as if that hadn't been in the top three of the thousand things on your to do list now that you were back in the world) to show Sam that you were fine. That you weren't worried, you felt no desperation whatsoever to reconnect to what it is that made you _you_. That you didn't feel like there was this glass wall inside of you, and it was about to form cracks, and then shatter.

That there hadn't been a stupid freakin' lump in your throat because you hugged him, he hugged you back tight enough that your bones nearly cracked, and he smelled like Fritos and you thought you'd never see him again.

The two of you, you went through the motions. You grumbled about the iPod jack in your baby, showed your disgust at Sam's music, made like you gave a rat's ass about it. Once upon a time you really would have, but not now.

Made like you weren't scared, a tiny spark of fear in your chest that you were an intrusion in his life, that he wanted you there, but he didn't quite know what to do with you.

Like those first months after Palo Alto all over again, except this Sam, this Sam is worlds away from that Sam. You hate yourself for wishing you could have that other Sam returned.

He didn't have to do it all by himself any more, he didn't have to be you. You're you. Here I am, you told him, big brother's back. Maybe you hoped you could crumble the shell with your words. You knew all about shells, how they broke, finally.

But this version of Sam was what you thought had to happen, wasn't it? What you'd pushed him towards, for twelve months?

Protect Sammy, that was your job, and that was what you did, and he was still alive because of you.

Dirt, water, sun -- they felt strange to you because of some screwy perception thing, was all. Your brain was fried from whatever had been done to you.

Sam was like dirt and water and sun now.

Possibly you were the one who was weird, with that mark on your shoulder and trying to figure out if water ever had an actual flavor. You were clenching and unclenching your fingers as you walked down that road, while your skin itched as if you couldn't quite figure out how to be in your own body.

~*~

You lean against the frame of the bathroom door in a motel somewhere a day's drive from Pontiac. The light behind you pushes back enough darkness to reveal your brother. He lies asleep on his stomach with one elbow bent, hand out of sight beneath the pillow where you're pretty sure there is a knife.

His face is hidden, making it impossible for you to tell whether sleep has smoothed the shell away. If you wait long enough, he might turn over.

You stand and watch, while the memory of fire and the flutter of dark wings thrums against the back of your mind.


End file.
